Evans L, Frick M C
General Motors Research, Warren, Michigan 48090-9055.
J Stud Alcohol. 1993 Jul;54(4):441-9. doi: 10.15288/jsa.1993.54.441.
Although alcohol's effect on the risk of being involved in a traffic crash is well known, its influence on the risk of death, given that a crash has occurred, is more uncertain. One study published a few years ago finds that alcohol increases such risk. The present study examines alcohol's effect on fatality risk in a crash using data and methods independent of the previous study, and provides estimates as a function of blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Data for drivers with measured BAC who were fatally injured in a two-car crash were selected from the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS). The study uses two sets of fatal crashes. For one, the probability that a BAC = 0 driver was killed is low, so that if alcohol increased fatality risk, this would generate additional fatalities at higher BAC levels. For the other set of crashes, fatality risk was sufficiently close to 100% that other factors had little opportunity to influence it. Dividing the fatalities that can be affected by alcohol by those that cannot measures alcohol's influence on fatality risk, and gives that a driver with BAC = 0.1% is 1.9 +/- 0.2 times as likely as is a BAC = 0 driver to be killed in the same crash. The corresponding ratio for a BAC = 0.25% driver is 3.3 +/- 0.5. While derived using the "laboratory" of traffic, there does not appear to be any obvious reason why the results should not apply to physical trauma in general, so a BAC of 0.1% doubles the risk of death from a given impact, and a BAC of 0.25% triples the risk.
尽管酒精对卷入交通事故风险的影响众所周知，但在已发生撞车事故的情况下，其对死亡风险的影响却更具不确定性。几年前发表的一项研究发现酒精会增加这种风险。本研究使用与先前研究无关的数据和方法，考察了酒精对撞车事故中死亡风险的影响，并给出了作为血液酒精浓度（BAC）函数的估计值。从致命事故报告系统（FARS）中选取了在两车相撞事故中受致命伤且测量了BAC的司机的数据。该研究使用了两组致命撞车事故。对于其中一组，BAC = 0的司机死亡概率较低，因此如果酒精增加了死亡风险，那么在较高BAC水平时就会产生额外的死亡人数。对于另一组撞车事故，死亡风险足够接近100%，以至于其他因素几乎没有机会影响它。用可受酒精影响的死亡人数除以不受酒精影响的死亡人数，可衡量酒精对死亡风险的影响，结果表明，BAC = 0.1%的司机在同一起撞车事故中死亡的可能性是BAC = 0的司机的1.9 +/- 0.2倍。BAC = 0.25%的司机的相应比率为3.3 +/- 0.5。虽然这些结果是利用交通事故这个“实验室”得出的，但似乎没有明显理由表明这些结果不适用于一般的身体创伤，所以BAC为0.1%会使因给定撞击而死亡的风险加倍，而BAC为0.25%会使风险增至三倍。
